


Paragon

by fansofcollisions



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Black Paladin Lance (Voltron), Gen, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 20:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12489776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fansofcollisions/pseuds/fansofcollisions
Summary: One, Allura. She’s got the experience and the head for battle, a proven leader. Good choice.Two, Pidge. She’s bright, crafty, strategic. She knows how to win a fight without taking a hit. Good choice.Three, Hunk. He’s steadfast, and he’s strong like Shiro. He looks out for his team. Good choice.Four, Keith. He’s a pain, but he’s what Shiro would have wanted. Good choice.Five. Lance. He’s…He just wants it so bad.---The Black Lion makes its decision.





	Paragon

Coran chooses the numbers – count them off.

One, Allura. She’s got the experience and the head for battle, a proven leader. Good choice.

Two, Pidge. She’s bright, crafty, strategic. She knows how to win a fight without taking a hit. Good choice.

Three, Hunk. He’s steadfast, and he’s strong like Shiro. He looks out for his team. Good choice.

Four, Keith. He’s a pain, but he’s what Shiro would have wanted. Good choice.

Five. Lance. He’s…

He just wants it so bad.

 One by one, Lance watches the other pilots walk up the ramp through the lion’s maw. Each time, he clenches his fists a little more, heart yearning towards the silent black beast, calling out with everything in him. _Choose me. Pick me, let me be first. I can do it. Choose me._

Allura, face as ashen as her hair, returns first. She was his first choice, if it couldn’t be him. He’s accustomed to her orders, the ringing of her tinny voice in his ear. As their leader it would have been clearer, stronger. That’s what he wanted, right? A bit more closeness. One less degree of separation.

It doesn’t matter. It’s not her.

Pidge is next. She isn’t taking it seriously, Lance can see that in her eyes. The bounce in her step is too light, her gait too steady, the corners of her mouth too relaxed. She looks small as she disappears into the mouth. He’s not sure what command would do to her – would she stand a little taller? He doubts it. He sees her curled behind a computer, legs tucked beneath her, headphones filled with radio chatter instead of music, Shiro’s haunted look playing in the circles below her eyes.

She’s only fifteen. He hadn’t left home at fifteen. He couldn’t even convince his little sister to wear proper shoes to the playground, much less command a military squad. She’s too young to look that old, even in his imagination.

She looks no smaller coming out, no worse for wear, and Lance’s quickened breath evens. Not her.

Hunk barely lasts a minute before he’s out again: whistling, cheerful. It’s almost convincing, the nonchalance in his explanation. It would probably be to someone who wasn’t there for the late night cram sessions, the anxious exam weeks, the tough messages from home. There’s an intense relief that's written in the looseness of Hunk’s hands and the uncreasing of his brow, and Lance would pat him on the back in subtle congratulation, if his own hands weren’t held so tight to his sides.

Hunk would have made a great leader, he’s sure of it, but he’s glad for his friend’s sake that the lion didn’t choose an unwilling pilot.

He glances at Keith through the corner of his eye, so he won’t see him looking. It’s a baseless worry – Keith is staring at the ground. Keith, who always does one better than Lance. First in their class, ace pilot, Shiro’s right hand man. He looks so far off now, like he doesn’t hear what’s going on around him.

Shiro’s disappearance hit him hard, harder than the rest of them. Lance tries to remember that every time the anger becomes too much, every time Keith presses another button, withdraws a little more. Lance doesn’t know how he could take orders from this guy. He thinks he might self-combust, the fuse of frustration running too deep into his veins. With Keith, he’s always one spark away from explosion.

They’re ok because at least here, at least now, at least on paper, they’re equals. He doesn’t know what they’ll be if that balance shifts.

 _Not him. For once, for_ once _, let it be me._

Coran opens his mouth, ready to announce the next candidate, and the inside of Keith’s chest seems to cave before Lance’s startled eyes. It’s enough to shock his hands to motion, to reach out to steady the body that’s collapsing into itself. What was-

“Lance, you’re up.”

He freezes, and Keith turns away, paces towards the wall, as far from Lance as he can get. Right. This isn’t Hunk. This is Keith – of course he doesn’t want Lance’s help. He drops his hand.

“Lance?”

His turn. A chance to prove his worth.

He’s never walked this pathway before. The ramp into the lion’s jaw feels wider than it should, a gape meant for someone bigger than him. The panels that brace the passage to the cockpit soak in the light where Blue would have reflected it, turning his own image back on himself. It only takes a few steps to lose the light entirely.

The viewscreen is as dark as the panelling, and he can’t tell if the silence is a respectful reverie from those watching or some manufactured quiet reserved for the sake of leaderly concentration, but either way he aches for noise. He likes to hear the gears work, the engine purr beneath him: anything to shake the feeling he’s inside something dead. He’d fill the void with his own voice, if only there was someone to talk to.

He sits in the chair and reaches for the controls, tells himself his hands aren’t shaking. With eyes closed he remembers the diving drill from their first days, the strain and the joy of seeing through another being’s eyes. He encircles that feeling and treasures it in the space between his ribs. He just has to concentrate, just try a little harder, convince Black that he’s got what it takes. What it takes, he doesn’t know, but he has to try.

The fantasy of clear skies breaking with a triumphant whoop shatters, and he feels the warmth in his chest slipping away.

What it takes, Keith has.

He’s the last one left. Nothing’s happening, and Keith will go next, and win, and Lance will be one step behind again. Of course, it had to be Keith. He always knew that, didn’t he?

Keith. There’s something wrong with Keith. Blue skies are replaced with the curve of Keith’s back, bowed under some unseen weight. Before Lance’s name was called, he looked like he’d taken a bullet to the gut. Lance has never seen him this distressed.

There’s something really wrong.

Lance takes a shuddering breath, and wills his hands to release the controls. He’s going to walk out with his pride, and congratulate Keith when the lion makes its inevitable choice, and he’s going to figure out what’s going on in his teammate’s head. He doesn’t love the guy, but he can’t stand by and watch someone fall apart. Not on his watch. That’s not how he rolls.

_Right. Let go, hold your head high, release._

The viewscreen blazes to life.

The growl that follows rattles Lance’s teeth, rumbling through him from throat to toes. It’s all he can do to hold onto the controls as the lion lurches forward. The power rests beneath his fingertips, but his panicked nudges do nothing to deter the machine’s course as it rises to full height, and Lance is afraid that if they rear any further they’ll break straight through the walls of the hanger.

It should be exhilarating, to hear the lion roar, to know it’s his destiny to command all this might. It’s all he’s ever wanted.

It’s terrifying.

Slowly, so slowly, he eases back on the handles, till he’s leaned back so far into the chair he’s afraid he’ll topple backwards into the dark recesses of the cabin. The lurch of falling in his chest is back, and this feels like the diving drill again but this time his eyes are screwed shut. There’s a heaviness hanging in the space his connection with Blue used to rest that’s too deep to penetrate, something older and wiser and more fearsome than he knows how to speak to.

_Please._

For a heart-stopping moment, he’s sure they’re about to leap, but the lion’s front paws hesitate, and slowly, they lower back to the ground.

He takes white-knuckled hands off the controls when he’s sure it’s stopped. The light fades, plunging him back in darkness.

The same quiet is back, save the pounding of his heart.

If they had leapt, he couldn’t have done anything to stop it. If Black had charged, taken Hunk in its teeth and crushed Allura beneath its paw, he couldn’t have stopped it. This isn’t like Blue’s artful dodging, unruly but always open, always listening.

The walk back down the corridor feels longer than it did when he entered, but he wants it to last forever. He wants to stay in the quiet a little longer, because out there…

Count them off – Allura, Coran, Pidge, Hunk, Keith. They’re all standing in a row, watching him descend in varying shades of disbelief. “I knew you could do it,” Hunk breathes.

He wants to hold his head high, to joke and rub it in Keith’s face, _hah, I win_ , but all he can focus on is the way Allura’s eyes have darkened, a respect there he’s never seen directed at him.

“Welcome, Black Paladin.”

The title hangs poorly on his narrow shoulders. He feels it now, what he should have understood, what Keith, his teachers, everyone has been trying to tell him. The realization hits him straight in the throat.

He can’t do this.

The team can’t see it yet, but he knows. He’s got no control over the lion, no smarts to compensate, no strategies to offer, no power to lead.

He’s going to fail.

He can’t even look at Keith now. How can he, when Keith lost Shiro, and what he’s got back in return is Lance, who can’t measure up, can’t even look Allura in the eye and receive the respect that he swears he wanted in the first place.

He needs to say something, but his mouth is glued shut. They’re waiting for him to crack a joke, pat himself on the back, prance around like an idiot or maybe, just maybe, act like the leader he needs to be. That he can’t be. He can’t do anything. He’s stuck in place.

“Lance.”

 He can’t feel the fingers on his shoulder though the casing of his suit, but he senses their pressure, so brief he can’t be sure he didn’t imagine it.

“Good luck.”

Keith is gone before Lance can catch his face, to see if flat words were marked by an expression of anger, or disappointment, or resignation.

“Thanks,” he whispers to Keith’s retreating back. It’s too late to reach a hand out and return the touch.

…It wasn’t him who needed comfort, only minutes ago. He takes a deep breath.

“Hey, wait up!” Lance catches Keith just outside the doorway. It slides shut, closing until Hunk disappears, then Pidge, Coran, Allura. A few more inches, and the black lion disappears as well.

“Can we talk?” Keith’s not looking at him, but he’s not running away either. Finally, he jerks his head and sighs. That’s a yes, in Keith-speak.

He can’t be the leader that this team needs, but this, at least, he can do.

It’ll have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Voltron fic, woo! I know I'm probably a year late to the party with this concept, but in my defense, I only started the show a few months ago, so it doesn't feel so long ago to me :) Anyway, the thought of Lance being chosen as the Black Paladin has been kicking around in my head for days.
> 
> I truly believe any of the paladins could have replaced Shiro. Everyone's the best at something, has something important to offer, whether they realize it or not. That's something I've had to learn in the last few years at my job, and I hope Lance realizes it as well.


End file.
